It seems like the hardest thing to understand in this game is base/ship design and how to get the most out of them. I thought it would be great to have one thread to discuss this. What do you need and what do you not need? What stacks and what doesn't? How many of one component is too much or too little?

For example from reading around it seems that 3 extractors is the most you need for any type of mining base/ship. This is exactly the type of tip I am looking for but so hard to find in one place!

I have also seen suggestions to remove all labs from space ports and only put one of each type on each type of research location. But also seen suggestions to put one type of each lab on resort bases to get access to commerce and research in the same spot?

Many suggest lots of construction yards on star ports but only one on a construction ship.

I have seen suggestions to put a commerce center on every base. Why put a medical center on anything else but a spaceport or troopship?

Why put more than one fuel cell or one energy collector on an immobile base?

Is more than one cargo bay only necessary for mining bases/ships and spaceports?

- Small ports to minimalistic design (without any weapons, armor, labs, only 1 construction yard with 1 factory of each type, 1 carbo bay, 1 fuel cell...). Small planets can build them fast and receive bonuses from medical and entertainment centers. - I never install any weapons at ports. Instead i create megafortresses with tons of shields and missiles - planet must build simple port ASAP first, and then fortify itself. And equip them with long-range scanners, they are surprisingly useful. - As mentioned above, make specialized lab stations with lots of specifical lab modules (no shields or weaponry). Place 1 of each type them at homeworld and never bother with potential research locations. You can have a wonder with much greater bonus. - 1 fuel cell is more than enough for orbital base. - Only 1 resource scanner is required for exploration ship. - I usually place 25 hi-tech, 25 energy and 10 weapon factories at main spaceport. You won't need much weapon at start, and ships usually have much more other components. Port with 15 yards can churn out ships as hot pies. - Place as much passenger bays at resorts as you can. - Remove any excess components from Colonizers. - Design specialized troopcarriers with LOT of defense.

- Small ports to minimalistic design (without any weapons, armor, labs, only 1 construction yard with 1 factory of each type, 1 carbo bay, 1 fuel cell...). Small planets can build them fast and receive bonuses from medical and entertainment centers. - I never install any weapons at ports. Instead i create megafortresses with tons of shields and missiles - planet must build simple port ASAP first, and then fortify itself. And equip them with long-range scanners, they are surprisingly useful. - As mentioned above, make specialized lab stations with lots of specifical lab modules (no shields or weaponry). Place 1 of each type them at homeworld and never bother with potential research locations. You can have a wonder with much greater bonus. - 1 fuel cell is more than enough for orbital base. - Only 1 resource scanner is required for exploration ship. - I usually place 25 hi-tech, 25 energy and 10 weapon factories at main spaceport. You won't need much weapon at start, and ships usually have much more other components. Port with 15 yards can churn out ships as hot pies. - Place as much passenger bays at resorts as you can. - Remove any excess components from Colonizers. - Design specialized troopcarriers with LOT of defense.

Wow never build a research station at a research site? One of each type only at the homeworld?

Yes. Because: - Bonuses from different sites of the same type won't stack - I usually build all "scientific" wonders, and they overcome any possible site bonus (and there's no stacking too) - Stations in deep space (with scientist characters onboard) are too vulnerable; i can't waste valuable battleships on patrolling them (at least at start) - At Homeworld, i can easily retrofit them or build additional ones - and my constructors will build something more vital for imperial economy

Yes. Because: - Bonuses from different sites of the same type won't stack - I usually build all "scientific" wonders, and they overcome any possible site bonus (and there's no stacking too) - Stations in deep space (with scientist characters onboard) are too vulnerable; i can't waste valuable battleships on patrolling them (at least at start) - At Homeworld, i can easily retrofit them or build additional ones - and my constructors will build something more vital for imperial economy

Bonuses don't stack? So you can only get the bonus from one site only? And this is why everyone suggest building one base only?

Good points especially about deep space bases not being able to be retrofitted and vulnerable...

-Add 4 Fuel cells to explorers, 5 requires additional LS/Hab, Less time spent returning for fuel, more time finding what you want.

I 100% agree with the Base redesigns, never building at R&D locations, building Research Wonders asap. As well I build the Boskara(sic?) Shipyards asap. R&D bases, drop all the surplus modules and you can double the Labs.

Sure if you centralize all your R&D at the Home planet and lose the location your Research is crippled, but I cannot remember ever losing my home planet.

Bonuses don't stack? So you can only get the bonus from one site only? And this is why everyone suggest building one base only?

Bonus from Locations don't stack, only the best one count. But even when they don't stack, it's a good idea to claim these, so the other empire don't get these.

I design at startup my home Spaceport to have 10 of each Lab's + Energy collector's and retrofit it. The Research station just minimal with 1 Lab to claim the location bonus.

quote:

- I usually place 25 hi-tech, 25 energy and 10 weapon factories at main spaceport. You won't need much weapon at start, and ships usually have much more other components. Port with 15 yards can churn out ships as hot pies.

That's not realy nesesary because the these factories just construct the modules and the Construction yards build the ships from them. So long you got the resources on hold the ships get build very fast. If you got a long waiting queue on a Space port, you are missing some resources.

- Add more engines to all private ships. They should have 10-14 depend on size. Don't forget to check if they got enough reactor output to reach full Warp speed.

I usually avoid centralizing my research to a few worlds as I view it as a mild exploit (AI don't use it, and it seems against the spirit of the game), but avoiding research locations entirely does not seem a good strategy.

Aside from claiming them simply to avoid the AI having it, getting a good bonus from each location type is still better than nothing, regardless of whether the wonders offer even more research speed (unless I've misunderstood something it WILL stack with the wonders, and it will increase the research cap itself). I agree about the rest, although a few weapons at the port itself makes sense given its position in the center of the alien attack.

quote:

Why put more than one fuel cell or one energy collector on an immobile base?

Is more than one cargo bay only necessary for mining bases/ships and spaceports?

An immobile base needs enough energy collectors to be equal to or greater than its static energy drain, provided it has that it just needs a few cells (maybe just 1) for its weapons if attacked.

Cargo bays also makes sense for refuel ships and freighters, though I imagine you already knew that. [;)]

One ship with a Long Range Sensor... I have been able to stop MORE trouble with that...

+1 Absolute truth in that statement!

I put long range scanners on some of my explorer ship designs which tend to get ignored by enemies - unlike monitoring stations which become prime targets in war. Pepper them around your empire and you have the proverbial 'fly on the wall' scenario. :)

Because there are no weapons on these ships, I think they become low priority targets - if considered a target at all. Also, you can park them in other race's systems without them barking about military in their territory. Again, the 'fly on the wall'...

Best part - you can MOVE THEM around to where you need them. Something you can't do with monitoring stations.

ORIGINAL: Tanaka I have also seen suggestions to remove all labs from space ports and only put one of each type on each type of research location. But also seen suggestions to put one type of each lab on resort bases to get access to commerce and research in the same spot?

I have seen suggestions to put a commerce center on every base. Why put a medical center on anything else but a spaceport or troopship?

Is more than one cargo bay only necessary for mining bases/ships and spaceports?

What other tips can you offer?

Putting research labs on Resort Bases does not make any sense. I challenged this assertion in another thread and, AFAIK, the person who suggested doing it did not follow-up. So I will make my own assertion and let others challenge it: Research labs do not belong on anything but Research Bases (and for the sake of simplicity, defendability, and maintainability, Space Ports). Only a RESEARCH BASE will give you the research bonus of a particular location. If you settle a planet with a research bonus, not even the Space Port will give you the bonus (fact check).

TIP: I like to have just one Large Space Port design which has research labs. I retrofit it with additional labs as my research potential grows. I only build one of these. My Medium Space Port designs are for all other planets. My Small Space Port design is for bootstrapping colonies when my funds are low. For me this is easy to maintain. I also agree, however, that in the early game snagging a 20%+ research location is worth building the Research Base. Put extractors/mining comps, cargo holds, and a Commerce Center on it to get double the utility (research and resources). In the late game I find Building Research stations a drag and don't bother. The late game is a drag anyway in almost all respects.

Only put commerce centers on bases that generate... uh, commerce. I think this goes without saying but I will say it anyway: if you build a station that (like a Research Sation) that also extracts/mines resources, then ships are going to come and pick up those resources. The Commerce Center gives a bonus to the sell price (fact check--I believe that is essentially all the Commerce Center does).

Why put a Medical Center on anything other than a Space Port is my next question. I don't think Med Centers on Troop Transports are that essential. I would rather have the extra troop space. You will easily get generals that have bonuses to Troop Recovery. That's just my opinion.

Cargo Bays on Space Ports may help make cargo transfers more efficient. I don't know how it works, but it *sounds* like cargo is first put into the hold of the Space Port before it is transfered to a ship docking at that Space Port and vice-versa. So it *seems* that if you only have one cargo bay, you will bottleneck your loading/unloading at the Space Port. This is assuming that the transfer of cargo between the Space Port to the planet is set at some constant value (like the mining speed of the planet itself). What I mean is, again assuming all this is correct, your ships will wait to unload cargo to the Space Port until the Space Port's cargo holds are empty. The Space Port cargo hold won't be empty until the invisible docking component between Space Port and planet moves everything to the planet surface (and vice-versa in the case of outgoing freight). If you have more docking bays on the Space Port than there are these invisible docking bays between the planet and the Space Port, there becomes the bottleneck. I cannot emphasize this enough: this is my conjecture. I haven't bothered trying to figure it out, because I just leave the extra cargo bays on the Space Port per the default design. I think you might be able to put ZERO cargo bays on your Space Ports. If this is the case and it works, then everything I have just written is bollocks (also in which case you should just put no cargo bays on your Space Ports).

For Mining Ships, the question is stickier. It is more fuel efficient to give your mining ships more cargo bays. But I don't think it is wise. I want my Mining Ships constantly trickling in resources to prevent occasions where any one resource becomes too scarce. Mining Ships *appear* to mine locations with resources in high demand. Their method for choosing location is a secret known only to the elite inner circle, but I believe it involves vermuth, permanent markers, and a blood sacrifice to Armok. Many an early game have I pulled my hair out waiting for a mining ship to finish mining silicon at a desert planet while my Colony Ship waits for steel. Having Mining Ships mine less more often mitigates this atrocious behaviour.

Which leads me to my next TIP: Early game, builing a state vessel with a mining component and cargo bay can be a life-saver. I usually choose the Escort design for this. You can tell the state ship EXACTLY what you want it to do. Need steel? Tell it to go mine some. No more are you at the mercy of your capricious private sector mining ships.

Finally, I am going to push back against some "common wisdom" that I have seen in other threads regarding ship design. People seem to overpower their ships. This means putting energy generation in excess of what is optimal. The reasoning behind this is that you want your ship to be able to power all weapons at sprint speed. There is a flaw in this reasoning, however. Ships only sprint for two reasons: 1) to engage and enemy and 2) to escape an enemy while being blocked from hyperspace. I will discuss these two scenarious.

Obviously, when a ship is trying to escape, its biggest priority is not shooting weapons. It will, but it probably wouldn't be trying to escape unless it was already taking damage. And very likely that damge is hitting vital components, like weapons systems. If it isn't, then *hopefully* it is escaping the enemy and leaving weapons range. If it is leaving weapons range, then it can't shoot. So the only time sprinting and weapons fire take place simultaneously during an escape situation is when the ship cannot outrun the enemy and damage is still limited to armor. I do not recommend designing ships around this edge case. You can make an argument for it, but I would argue that the space is better spent on extra weapons because...

When a ship is engaging, as soon as it reaches optimal weapons range, it ceases to sprint and begins firing. So that excess engine power you reserved for sprinting while designing the ship is wasted. Better to use it on weapons fire. And the more firepower you bring, the less likely you are going to encounter the edge case above. Once the ship has engaged, is it most likely using cruise speed. So...

Design ships with adequate energy to fire all weapons at cruising speed. The vast majority of the time this is the situation you will be in during combat.

Others may have insights that lead them to disagree with me. I welcome any correction where my assertions are based on erroneous assumptions or information.

You have to take a lot of these suggestions with a very large grain of salt. It's obvious a lot of folks here play on smaller maps, with tactics that simply don't work well, or at all, on larger maps. If, for example, you play on the maximum size map (15x15) then, unless you haven't bothered to expand properly, you'll quickly discover there's absolutely no way in hell to defend a large empire reactively. Fleets take months to get from one place to another; by the time they arrive the battle will be long over and the enemy will either have disappeared or be on their way to their next target. Unless you don't mind having everything you own and spent months/years building in a system blown straight to sh*t, you'll need to invest a lot in static defenses.

For me, I add a couple of shields and blasters to mining stations for anti-pirate activity, but no more as against any enemy force beyond a frigate they're toast and will simply have to be rebuilt. The more important stations (resort, research) get much better defenses and weaponry and can generally defeat several smaller enemy ships or one larger one. Anything more and the cost of investment/maintenance isn't worth it.

Spaceports, however, are pretty much the key to an entire colonized system and have to be protected. My spaceports are able to take on, and defeat, enemy fleets by themselves; they'll have to, as relief forces won't arrive for months unless luck has them right next door when the attack occurs. These space stations are size 1250/2500/5000 and will kick ass and take names a good percentage of the time. Furthermore, they're also equipped with fighters so the rest of the system can also be defended, to one degree or another. These ports are costly but definitely worth it if you're playing on the largest maps where reaction fleets are simply an exercise in stupidity. On larger maps fleets are always proactive and not reactive (aside from dumb luck) so you use them to attack the enemy or retake lost systems, not defend what you have; defense has to be relegated to bases given the travel times from one end of the empire to the other, and the fact that a few frigates or destroyers on patrol will be wasted in seconds by a decent-sized enemy fleet.

The build tactics are different for larger maps and longer games than they are for smaller maps and shorter games.

ORIGINAL: Dd_01 - I usually place 25 hi-tech, 25 energy and 10 weapon factories at main spaceport. You won't need much weapon at start, and ships usually have much more other components. Port with 15 yards can churn out ships as hot pies.

Wasteful. One factory of each type per construction yard. Anything more than that is a waste.

Everything you have written is bollocks. [:D] I just wanted to say that. (@jpwrunyan)

Well not everything. Spaceports, however, share cargo space with their colony and hence need zero cargo bays. So all that was bollocks.

Realistically only one of each type of manufacturing plant is needed on a spaceport. Well in excess of 30 construction yards can be supported by one of each with no loss of speed.*

*[The limit you are most likely to run into in a real game is that if you have 30 yards and order 30 carriers maxxed out on fighter bays then you might lose something less than 5% construction speed (if you do this while all construction yards are intially unoccupied).]

Everything you have written is bollocks. [:D] I just wanted to say that. (@jpwrunyan)

Well not everything. Spaceports, however, share cargo space with their colony and hence need zero cargo bays. So all that was bollocks.

Realistically only one of each type of manufacturing plant is needed on a spaceport. Well in excess of 30 construction yards can be supported by one of each with no loss of speed.*

*[The limit you are most likely to run into in a real game is that if you have 30 yards and order 30 carriers maxxed out on fighter bays then you might lose something less than 5% construction speed (if you do this while all construction yards are intially unoccupied).]

Another small tip is if you create your designs with components in the right order you can get them powering up shields, firing weapons and/or extracting resources before the the base/ship is finished!

The result is: 1. If you want maximum ship construction speed from a port, you must keep a ratio of 1 manufacturing plant of each type per construction yard. Fewer plants can cause bottlenecks in your production. 2. More yards or plants on a construction ship gives no benefit. Only 1 of each (1 yard, 1 of each plant) is of any use.

Everything you have written is bollocks. [:D] I just wanted to say that. (@jpwrunyan)

Yeah, I guess I am not surprised. It wouldn't be the first time, anyway. I had this nagging feeling that in the early days I got away with 0 cargo bays on my space ports. But I also remember at the time people were saying you should put mining components on your spaceports as well to get extra resources (which is definitely bollocks). So somewhere along the way I got fed up with doing so many things wrong and trying to sort the false from the true that I must have rationalized the default designs. My bad.

The whole space port/planet relationship is a bit esoteric, I think. Like the fact that planets have 3 invisible docking bays as well as their own construction yard.

Anyway, if you have cargo holds on a space port stuff does get put into them, right? Because I am pretty sure I have seen it happen... I believe stuff gets put into the cargo holds of defensive bases and resort bases as well, right? Was I halucinating? If so there must be some reason to it...

Realistically only one of each type of manufacturing plant is needed on a spaceport. Well in excess of 30 construction yards can be supported by one of each with no loss of speed.*

Have you actually tested your 1-plant-30-yard hypothesis? I'd love to see your results, because it's in complete contradiction to the results of everyone else.

Gee, your testing regime is non-existent. Because if it wasn't you might have learned something.

Read this thread http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3180183&mpage=1&key=plants? for some enlightenment. If you do not understand the explanation I'll try to help. If you don't agree with the results do some testing and preesent your reults. I would be most interested since as far as I know no-one else has tested the working of plants in spaceports; certainly no-one has posted any results, let alone contested the conclusion.

Realistically only one of each type of manufacturing plant is needed on a spaceport. Well in excess of 30 construction yards can be supported by one of each with no loss of speed.*

Have you actually tested your 1-plant-30-yard hypothesis? I'd love to see your results, because it's in complete contradiction to the results of everyone else.

Gee, your testing regime is non-existent. Because if it wasn't you might have learned something.

Read this thread http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3180183&mpage=1&key=plants? for some enlightenment. If you do not understand the explanation I'll try to help. If you don't agree with the results do some testing and preesent your reults. I would be most interested since as far as I know no-one else has tested the working of plants in spaceports; certainly no-one has posted any results, let alone contested the conclusion.

The question is of greatest potential speed - in any situation.

Once you have a bottleneck of a required resource and say 29 of 30 construction yards are paused waiting for the required resources - no construction can take place, because those yards have locked the production of the one available plant. If you maintain a 1-1 ratio, then other construction can continue as there are unoccupied plants which can produce ships (given no resource bottlenecks) while you wait for the resources.

Your hypothesis only works if the production capacity of the port is seen as a whole, in which case all production stops at the port regardless of the plant type required, in a situation of insufficient resources. However, I've seen ports continue to churn out ships when there's a lack of resources - so long as those ships do not require the lacking resource(s). Or so I seem to remember - I've gone off DW for the moment, since Shadows is looming on the (hopefully near) horizon.

Or so it seems. The editor doesn't allow us to edit cargo levels, so it's rather difficult to test this thoroughly. My experience, however, seems to suggest that a 1-30 ratio is a recipe for choking your production entirely.

But hey, you might be right - given the difficulty of testing at that granularity, I'll shrug and say "who cares?" until someone presents definitive information. 30-1 ratio seems daft no matter which way it works.

Realistically only one of each type of manufacturing plant is needed on a spaceport. Well in excess of 30 construction yards can be supported by one of each with no loss of speed.*

Have you actually tested your 1-plant-30-yard hypothesis? I'd love to see your results, because it's in complete contradiction to the results of everyone else.

Gee, your testing regime is non-existent. Because if it wasn't you might have learned something.

Read this thread http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3180183&mpage=1&key=plants? for some enlightenment. If you do not understand the explanation I'll try to help. If you don't agree with the results do some testing and preesent your reults. I would be most interested since as far as I know no-one else has tested the working of plants in spaceports; certainly no-one has posted any results, let alone contested the conclusion.

The question is of greatest potential speed - in any situation.

Once you have a bottleneck of a required resource and say 29 of 30 construction yards are paused waiting for the required resources - no construction can take place, because those yards have locked the production of the one available plant. If you maintain a 1-1 ratio, then other construction can continue as there are unoccupied plants which can produce ships (given no resource bottlenecks) while you wait for the resources.

Your hypothesis only works if the production capacity of the port is seen as a whole, in which case all production stops at the port regardless of the plant type required, in a situation of insufficient resources. However, I've seen ports continue to churn out ships when there's a lack of resources - so long as those ships do not require the lacking resource(s). Or so I seem to remember - I've gone off DW for the moment, since Shadows is looming on the (hopefully near) horizon.

Or so it seems. The editor doesn't allow us to edit cargo levels, so it's rather difficult to test this thoroughly. My experience, however, seems to suggest that a 1-30 ratio is a recipe for choking your production entirely.

But hey, you might be right - given the difficulty of testing at that granularity, I'll shrug and say "who cares?" until someone presents definitive information. 30-1 ratio seems daft no matter which way it works.

Oh, come on, what a lack of intellectual rigour. It is easy to test. (And to shrug 'who cares?' after claiming that everyone else has results which show otherwise and asking for my testing results smacks of bad faith at the very least. If you don't care and really don't know why did you bother to issue such a confrontational challenge?)

First generate a galaxy (new game). I like to use a minimal galaxy both size and star numbers, for computational speed purposes, but any will do. I suggest turning off pirates and monsters so they don't interfere while you are testing. One opponent set at maximum distance. Give yourself an excellent homeworld, and the opponent a harsh one (not necessary but helps to keep them from interfering if your test runs long; excellent world means more resources for experimentation without requiring actually playing to gather them ). Starting technology (keeps throughput of resources to a minimum), oh, and keep it at a single colony for convenience.

Pause your start game. Delete (via editor or scrapping) all your ships (partly convenience partly so that they don't interfere). Save this (save1) so we can make other tests later. Retrofit your spaceport so that it has 30 yards and one of each plant (since this is what we are testing). Don't bother with anything else until this retrofit is complete. Now save your game (optional save2) in case you want to reuse it/test other similar things.

a) Order 30 ships of any given single type (for convenience since we want them to all finish at once) at your spaceport (the only limitation is making sure that you have the resources present to build them all). Pause and unpause until you find the point at which (give or take a day) the first components of each ship are built (can be slightly messy but the more precise the better). Write down the date. Now unpause until you get the message that the ships are finished. Write down the completion date and then figure out how many days elapsed between when the first components were added and when the ships were completed and divide this number by 6 (the build tic is six days) rounding slightly to an integer to eliminate messiness. This gives you the number of build tics between when the first components were added (definitive start date) and when the ships were completed. Write this number down and underline it.

b) Load save1. Retrofit your spaceport to have 30 yards and 30 manufacturing plants of each type.* (Optional make save3 in case you want to retest.) Order 30 ships which are of the same type as in a). Repeat the process as above until you have the number of tics between the definitive start and the completion date. Now if the Kayoz hypothesis is correct then tics a) will be much greater than tics b). If the feelotraveller hypothesis is correct then tics a) will equal tics b). What did you find?

*[Actually having at least 2 plants of each type will suffice for the experiment. :)]

Not difficult and not particularly granular. Nor was it difficult to come up with.

Similar tests can be conducted to confirm (strictly speaking provide evidence to support) my hypotheses on construction yard speed (easy, just vary tech levels) and manufacturing plant speed (slightly more time consuming since you need to count the total size of components in each category produced each tic including those added to ships - note that the remainder is carried over as components started but not finished).

Resource shortages are a red herring and I am not sure why you introduce them. (But to be explicit for curious minds.) If there are shortages of resources for producing the components needed the plants will continue to producing other components which there are resources available for until only the components requiring the missing resource(s) are unproduced. It does not matter the number of plants you have. If there are shortages of components for ships in the construction yards then the yards will continue to build those ships with other components until only those not available are left to be built.

Resource shortages are a red herring and I am not sure why you introduce them. (But to be explicit for curious minds.) If there are shortages of resources for producing the components needed the plants will continue to producing other components which there are resources available for until only the components requiring the missing resource(s) are unproduced. It does not matter the number of plants you have. If there are shortages of components for ships in the construction yards then the yards will continue to build those ships with other components until only those not available are left to be built.

It's not a red herring - that's the whole point I'm laying a question mark over. Do the plants cease production (locked waiting for resources) or do they continue to produce other components that aren't lacking in resources? I'm unsure as to which is the correct answer. If they continue to produce, then you should see your builds that are stalled for resources complete for all components BUT those which are lacking. However, I seem to recall seeing ships that were 1/4 built and nothing more done till the offending resource arrived; at which point construction continued. On the other hand, if you're correct, then everything else should have been built except for the few components. Nothing in your test addresses this question.

Perhaps you missed the whole query of "is plant locked and waiting due to resource shortage". Need I spell out the difference for you in the case of resource shortage? Do I really have to do that? Your test is not testing the mechanics of plant production, but that of construction speed as dictated by the construction tech level. You seem to have failed to notice that construction yards only build at a certain rate - regardless of how fast plants are manufacturing. To make it simple for you - you're exercising the wrong game mechanic.

My main disinterest in the whole maximum ratio is due to the fact that a planet will almost never have sufficient resource to build 30 ships at once; and that I've never been in the position where - even if I had the resources at a planet, where I needed so many ships at once. If I am on a building spree like that, I'm generally gearing up for a major war - or it's too late and the delay of waiting on the default port ratios makes no difference when considering that the ships will almost assuredly come out with zero fuel and absolutely assuredly with zero shields (making throwing them immediately into combat rather pointless). Besides which, Erik's posts seem to hint that major changes have been made and the time required to test this sufficiently will be of no value and completely wasted once Shadows is released.

Once again, I shrug - "who cares?" Default ratio works fine for almost all circumstances.